Rob Davis

Course is filling up quickly, but there are still some spots available until the minimum of 10 participants is reached.

Grab your spot!

Ah Joe was on your course! He came to Kruger for our camera trap course in 2023! Also, next time I want a sticker too! 😏

📢 Competition funded PhD with @iapetusdtp.bsky.social: Occupancy, density & the ecology of terrestrial British mammals - what can years of systematic camera trapping tell us?

Apply by 5th January 2026. 👇
iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

@mammalweb.bsky.social @ptes-org.bsky.social @durham.ac.uk #phd

A great opportunity for anyone looking to develop their skills with movement data and spatial analysis! 🗺️📊

Julien (@fatbear-bio.bsky.social 🐻) has delivered this course twice at NMU and it's been hugely beneficial for our students and external participants!

Plus... NAMIBIA! 🤩🇳🇦

There are 3 exciting postdoctoral openings to work on biodiversity research, monitoring and conservation with us at UBC - check them out!

2 positions: biodiversity.ubc.ca/training-and...

1 position: science-bcbiodiversitynetwork-2025.sites.olt.ubc.ca/opportunities/

I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. The Results Were Shocking. "Students are not just undermining their ability to learn, but to someday lead."

To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.”

www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

Ecologists have limited options when modelling species distributions through time, especially when data are limited. The autoOcc R package provides a solution to this, making it simple to fit autologistic occupancy models, compare them, and make model predictions.

Out today, a companion article for my autoOcc R package: Estimating species occupancy across multiple sampling seasons with autologistic occupancy models via the autoOcc R package. #rstats 🧪

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🦔📉Habitat and predator heterogeneity influence density of a declining mammal

📷 © 1 Emily Clark 2 Hongli Yu

vist.ly/4c62s

#ErinaceusEuropaeus #LandscapesOfFear #MelesMeles #PopulationEcology #SpatialCaptureRecapture #SpatiotemporalCovariateHeterogeneity

African large carnivores in space and time: insights from camera‐traps on the fine‐scale spatio‐temporal dynamics of lions, spotted hyaenas and leopards Coexistence of sympatric large carnivores is common in many ecosystems. On the one hand, the potential for competitive interactions, from kleptoparasitism to intraguild predation, is high, so species...

🦁🐆🐾 Lions, leopards, and spotted hyaenas share the African savanna—but how do they coexist at such fine scales? Our new study in Oikos reveals the hidden dance of predators. doi.org/10.1002/oik....

📣📣📣 CONSERVATION GENETICS WORKSHOP -
Few more spaces left!

ConGen Population Genomic Data Analysis Course
🧬💻💡
University of Pretoria, South Africa 🌍
7-14 December + field trip to Kruger NP!
🦁🐃🐘🐆🦏

More info & registration here: www.umt.edu/congen/africa/

Thanks to all the coauthors but particularly @richardyarnell.bsky.social and @antoniouzal.bsky.social who have led this research for many years!

During my BSc at NTU, I participated in these surveys, collecting hedgehog capture history data in 2010 (and maybe 2009 or 2011, who knows it's that long ago! 🧓🏼). So it's pretty cool to go from collecting these data to assisting with the analyses all these years later! 😊

Our results showed that density declined over time & was spatially structured. As badger presence changed during the study, with a new badger sett appearing halfway through the study, we observed a density-weighted shift away from this badger sett, providing evidence for the landscape of fear.

Habitat and predator heterogeneity influence density of a declining mammal Accurate density estimates are crucial for effective conservation management. However, in highly dynamic landscapes where variation in habitat composition and predator–prey interactions in both space...

Congratulations to Hongli Yu for leading this huge effort investigating hedgehog density over an 11-year period from Brackenhurst Campus, Nottinghamshire

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

We estimated 🦔 density between 2009-2022, accounting for habitat features & 🦡 presence

a man applauds in front of a sign that says " so proud of you " ALT: a man applauds in front of a sign that says " so proud of you "

TFW your student wins the award for the best MSc talk at the conference!

Go Yasmin!

Cc @robdavis1104.bsky.social

A blog post on our recent Mostela paper looking at the methods' applicability for small carnivore monitoring!

TWS Journals We conducted a follow-up population survey of lions (Panthera leo) in a small, fenced reserve in South Africa, 2 years after the population numbers were significantly reduced by management. Our study....

Happy to share our new paper estimating lion density in Pilanesberg National Park 🇿🇦 and assessing optimal sampling guidelines for improved monitoring efficiency 🦁

wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

#mammals

A Mostela box deployed in the field

A Cape grey mongoose inside a Mostela box

Really happy to share our new paper exploring the Mostela as a monitoring tool for African small carnivores!

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Sample size considerations for species co‐occurrence models Multispecies occupancy models are widely applied to infer interactions in the occurrence of different species, but convergence and estimation issues under realistic sample sizes are common. We conduc...

📝 Are you using multispecies occupancy models to investigate interactions in species occupancy (i.e. co-occurrence)? 🦁🦓

Check out our new paper for advice on the number of sites you need to reliably detect interactions under different scenarios ⬇️

Prof Fat Bear! That's awesome! Congratulations man! 🥳

A spotted hyaena with a snare around its neck. Photo credit: big5photos.com

Predicted snare hotspots in Kruger, with the right side image showing predicted presence/absence of snares with sites of known snare detection

Happy to share our new paper, led by Cornelia Warrer, investigating large carnivore snaring rates & drivers of snare occurrence across Kruger NP!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We found that carnivores were highly susceptible to being caught in snares & predicted snaring hotspots in Kruger

A caracal moving under the bushes

Awful photos but a great sighting (before the photos 😆) of caracal on the way to the office this morning! 🤩 Not a bad "commute"! 😊

#caracal #mammals #SouthAfrica

Well done to Damaris, it was a great defence and excellent research! 🤩🦏

Happy #InternationalLeopardDay! 🐆

I didn't get to see a leopard today, but I'm lucky enough to get to work on projects involving them and got to spend today hiking in Cape leopard country in the Outeniqua Mountains 🤩🐆⛰️🏞️

🐆🐆 TWO M.S. POSITIONS AVAILABLE IN MY LAB!! Focus will be bobcat and coyote dynamics in an ocelot pre-reintroduction landscape. Come join the fun. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆

Position posting is here: tinyurl.com/5y3uhbf3

Developing a National Camera Trap Survey for Hedgehog Conservation YouTube video by ZSL Science and Conservation

Missed the NHMP talk hosted by @zslscience.bsky.social ? 🦔

Catch up & find out how we're tracking hedgehogs across the country: shorturl.at/jP54j

@ptes-org.bsky.social @hedgehogsociety.bsky.social @zslofficial.bsky.social @mammalweb.bsky.social @durham-university.bsky.social & Nottingham Trent Uni

Last call for expressions of interest in a Quantitative Ecology post-doc based mostly in South Africa. If you are interested, drop Lourens and me a line 👇

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jaxqx...

There are still spots available on both courses. Pre-register before end of April to secure your spot!

Super excited to share this new pub led by @wilsonsherm.bsky.social! We used Nextdoor posts to explore human-carnivore interactions in Los Angeles. Nextdoor offers a useful data source for understanding urban human-wildlife interactions, if human biases are accounted for. Check it out! 🧪🌎

Community Camera Trapping: A Novel Method for Encouraging Human–Big Cat Coexistence on Human‐Dominated Land Human–wildlife conflict poses a major threat to conservation and livelihoods. Here, we outline two innovative approaches: one where local people monitor wildlife on their land using camera-traps and ....

Great to have our paper out on community-camera-trapping: an innovative conservation incentive approach where local communities monitor their wildlife & generate points, which are translated into locally-chosen community benefits onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...